That already happens. It's called QuickTime events. Just replace AI with scripted sequence and there you go.
Is this really a suggestion to extent QuickTime events to last minutes at a time?
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Cinematic Games Should Be Watchable (without playing)
- Thread starter Pillville
- Start date
That already happens. It's called QuickTime events. Just replace AI with scripted sequence and there you go.
Is this really a suggestion to extent QuickTime events to last minutes at a time?
Wait for the last of us: the movie.
Seriously tho, this argument feels like I don't want to read a lot of text so I won't read books and misses out on good stories that people recommend, call me again when it's on the silver screen.
Triggerhappytel
Member
I find myself agreeing with your opinion more and more.
Haunted
Member
Real B-tier actors are boring compared to digitised A-tier actors, also games have better special effects.
also see: Beyond: Two Souls
Spiffy_1st
Member
I'm pretty sure there's already a massive industry dedicated to telling a story through visuals and sound. Video games would be better if they stuck to being a game.
If I hand your aunt A Song of Ice & Fire and she reject reading it because it have too many words, maybe reading isn't for her.
At some point if there's no longer any gameplay it's no longer a game.
entremet
Member
I wouldn't say that, just type of game won't be for her.
UltraGunner
Banned
OP you just described a movie. Granted the games industry is currently in its edgy teen stage and wants to be taken seriously so it attempts to emulated an already mature industry to prove to everyone on how grownup they are, but they still require at least a basic amount of player input. Take that away and what do you have?
CadetMahoney
Member
What about when everyone considers facial animations, canned sequences and linear plot-driven drivel to be god's gift to gaming?
ExFalsoQuodlibet
Member
If the player had the need to "watch" the game, that game would probably be badly designed in the first place. There's better stories in books and movies, really: games stories must always conform to the fact that it's a game, so there must be plenty of concessions of how the narration flows.
But I perfectly agree about bringing a watch-only mode to pointless piles of shit like Beyond: Two Souls, in which the gameplay and the narration work only if the players mechanically execute a series of meaningless actions without any deviation from whatever the "game designer" decided.
But I perfectly agree about bringing a watch-only mode to pointless piles of shit like Beyond: Two Souls, in which the gameplay and the narration work only if the players mechanically execute a series of meaningless actions without any deviation from whatever the "game designer" decided.
Net_Wrecker
Member
Have YOU been to the movies lately? Cause there are still good ones out every month. If you're getting "sick of the gameplay" you're either playing the wrong games or are in the wrong hobby.
I wonder if there are bookworms who wish the cliffs notes would come along with novels, or cinephiles who prefer a 5 minute Youtube clip instead of the movie.
No.
And no they "aren't basically movies." By that logic everything could be basically a "movie" including Dark Souls.
Totally agree.
meltingparappa
Member
Would listening to it on an audiobook version sacrilege as well?
Also is it worth going down the rabbit hole and asking if Walking Dead kept nothing but the branching story choices and striped out everything else, does that ruin the game for everyone to have that as an option?
No one is taking anything away. It an OPTION for certain types of games.
It lets people enjoy their purchase any way they want to.
Transformers 3 has been released in 2011, there's other movies out there you know.
Wikipedia has you covered.
Then she can complain that the audiobook is way too long.
Didn't play Walking Dead, but a game with branching path that have shit gameplay is not worth watching the end anyway.
Heck otherwise people wouldn't have shelved Alone in the Dark so hard when it released.
The game being absolutely shitty to play proved that it was surprisingly the better option actually in some cases.
The best option being actually never even going near that turd.
Listen, I love cinematic experiences.
I love Uncharted for what it offers during gameplay. Uncharted 3 is my favorite for that reason. My favorite moments in TLoU weren't the combat heavy one's. Turn those particular moments from TLoU or the desert in Uncharted 3 a cutscene and you have completely removed what I loved about it.
Its not about passive beauty. Its about what and how is presented while I am actually involved.
I love Uncharted for what it offers during gameplay. Uncharted 3 is my favorite for that reason. My favorite moments in TLoU weren't the combat heavy one's. Turn those particular moments from TLoU or the desert in Uncharted 3 a cutscene and you have completely removed what I loved about it.
Its not about passive beauty. Its about what and how is presented while I am actually involved.
meltingparappa
Member
That is pretty rad.
The problem from literally going cutscene to cutscene is someone will go from standing in a cityscape to suddenly having a flesh wound while hanging from airplane. Someone made a "Last of Us: The Movie" that did what you essentially described with minimal gameplay and worked pretty well if that type of feature were to become a ubiquitous.
There's a huge difference between TWD and say, Arkham Origins (mentioned in the OP). TWD has very little gameplay as is, and stripping it down to choices only would require a simple change of removing the boring QTEs. So, really horrible example you picked.
I would be ok with it though but only for games like TWD. I value gameplay above anything else. Personally, I came to despise games like Bioshock Infinite because they constantly interrupt my gameplay with cutscenens and whatnot and have resorted to games with little to no story.
In conclusion: ok for games with next to no gameplay, not ok for games where the story should be just a loose framework for excellent gameplay.
That wasn't rad, it only allowed you to go to the parts you already saw.
If you wanted the ending you still had to suffer through the game
Why is it fun to play RPGs when I can just grab the best gear and items at the beginning? No one got the time to grind for them gears.
The journey of how you reach the end is all a part of the game experience. Taking one out will affect everything.
meltingparappa
Member
The hypothetical feature wouldn't remove anything for you or anyone else that wants to explore the gameplay systems, it's for someone who wants to see the rest of the story with the full knowledge there'll be a compromise at the expense of what the gameplay adds.
The OP wasn't asking if someone who posts on a videogame message board would use it, just if it it should be an option.
This is why we need to move away from cutscenes so this thing isn't even an option.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Hence "further". My point is that adding this feature would just make things worse by fighting the symptom -- struggling through poor gameplay so that one can see the rest of the story -- without addressing the actual cause.
I realized that was a dumb analogy and removed it.
Net_Wrecker
Member
The issue here isn't about those moments though. This seems to be about wanting to skip ALL gameplay, no matter how little gameplay the section might be, and just 'watch' the game instead. What you're talking about is actual cinematic qualities, what the OP's talking about is literal cinema. That's why this is so perplexing. Movies are leaps and bounds better at being movies than games are. Why would anyone want one medium to be something it's not, especially when it's just being a worse version of that medium.
If Billy Bob Notagamer and Granda OldWoman can't get through The Last of Us and don't want to get proficient at the game, let them go watch or read The Road. The medium shouldn't contort itself to appease people that don't even appreciate the one major part of it that differentiates it from other story based entertainment.
But did you see sharknado? That was a brilliantly bad movie that knew it was a bad movie and ran with it. I wish AAA games were that self aware.
meltingparappa
Member
That's a whole other issue.
Portal 1/2: The 'Cutscene' Movie would require a lot of creativity, and that's a huge feather in its cap.
Close as we'll get.
Cosmo Clock 21
Banned
Interestingly enough if somebody charged $15 for a "movie only" version of a game most people would probably just buy that version.
This also wouldn't work very well on games with heavy path branching. Alpha Protocol would be very difficult to implement as a cutscene-only product.
Oh, I get what he is saying and personally find it somewhat offensive. I was just indicating that the aforementioned moments are my idea of something being "cinematic", using it purely as an adjective to design a moment. Keep the cinematic ratio, attention to detail, filmesque performances and animations, and developer controlled "filmic" camera angles; just do all of these things during gameplay.
But to remove anyform of input, to take interactivity out of the game is ridiculous. It would be like just wanting the audio track from a movie and never wanting to watch it. It defeats the purpose of the medium by disrupting its very DNA. I could never stand behind that. This medium can be cinematic, it should never be cinema. Even from a storytelling point I think its weaker. I played Shenmue and then watched the "movie" that was released with Shenmue 2 on Xbox, no where near as impactful. Shenmue's story really needs that time commitment in order to resonate, you simply cant get that in two hours.
TLDR edition.
I agree with you Net, 100% on this matter.
Jeronimo Jones
Member
I would never use this feature, mostly because as others have said, films already exist. A few other issues:
How many games have stories good or memorable enough that audiences would care about what happens if they weren't in the story/investing in?/bonding with? the player character?
How big is the audience for this/how profitable would this be for developers?
This could be a new revenue stream (which means some publisher will probably try it at some price point) but how would it affect normal gameplay?
Pricing? Surely most people wouldn't pay $60 for a couple hours of "game watching" in addition to the price of a console.
As a consumer, wouldn't it make more sense to pick another medium you're interested in with fewer barriers to entry?
How many games have stories good or memorable enough that audiences would care about what happens if they weren't in the story/investing in?/bonding with? the player character?
How big is the audience for this/how profitable would this be for developers?
This could be a new revenue stream (which means some publisher will probably try it at some price point) but how would it affect normal gameplay?
Pricing? Surely most people wouldn't pay $60 for a couple hours of "game watching" in addition to the price of a console.
As a consumer, wouldn't it make more sense to pick another medium you're interested in with fewer barriers to entry?
H_Prestige
Banned
I watched TLOU on youtube. Pretty entertaining.
KillerDark
Member
I feel that by doing that you would miss out on a lot... not all story happens during cinematics. TLOU is a great example, there is a lot of bonding and dialogue during gameplay.
This is not about buying a game just so you can watch a movie. This is for the many times I've spent 15 hours on a game, get completely sick of the game play, and just want to see the rest of the story.
90% of game owners don't finish the games they start, so I can't be the only one.
This wouldn't cost the developer anything except the time to code a menu option to watch the story. The voices/animations/story/etc... is all already there, you just have a short cut to watch them.
Was it that much different in the recent game? I watched a video and it looked very samey but I only glanced. Did they change it up at all?
Interfectum
Member
No offense but this seems like a dumb idea. A lot of cinematic games still tell the story during the gameplay so you are going to have a lot of disjointed scenes cut together with not a lot of context. Just watch TV brah.
If anything, Uncharted 3 was the one Uncharted you cant say that about. I'd certainly say Uncharted 3 kept you in control longer and more consistently than any of the others. Time wasn't spent shooting but I would say it has the fewest cutscenes and longest gameplay segments of the series.
NullPointer
Member
So which part of this is a game? Punitive NES death mechanics aside.
I didn't play the other two Uncharteds. All I know is I dropped the game because I was sick of watching instead of playing.
FlashbladeGAF
Member
I actually like when they throw in the gameplay segments to link the cutscenes together
All games that have cinema viewers should add little gameplay segments that benefit the story whether it be a boss battle or 2 characters having a conversation as they work their way thru a level. It just adds to the fun as well as keeping you immersed in the story (after youve beaten it and want to rewatch)
The MGS3 Subsistence Movie that came with the limited edition had gameplay moments between the cutscenes if I'm remembering correctly
I think even the ZOE 2 ZOE1 recap also had gameplay elements mixed in
Net_Wrecker
Member
Actually, from a quick Google search, Uncharted 2 had ~90 minutes of cutscenes while Uncharted 3 had ~110 minutes.
Also keep in mind that Uncharted 2 was like two or three hours longer.
I never got that feeling at all, then again I played all three and compared from within the series.
Now when you say cutscene you mean them as they actually are? 100% passive, right?